I Want to Hold Your Hand
by Monroe-Militia
Summary: When Charlie and Bass find themselves stuck with a group of sketchy individuals, they develop a new form of communication.


Charlie and Bass had stopped for some water when they heard the crunching of leaves and sticks nearby. Whoever was coming was not trying to disguise that they were approaching. Charlie reached for her weapon but left her hand hovering over it, rather than drawing it, as she glanced over at Monroe.

"What are you two doing out here?" A voice, which Charlie thought came out a little too suspiciously friendly, questioned.

The owner of the voice stepped out into the clearing then with a smile that put Charlie on high-alert. There was something off about it, but she couldn't quite determine exactly what it was as she watched several others, mostly male, walk out. They all stopped and looked over to the man who had talked. It was clear that he was their leader and Charlie was not eager for the company.

To her surprise, Monroe's hand moved a slight distance away from his own weapon as he took a step forwards and plastered on his phoniest smile. "Just looking for somewhere to set up camp for the night. Thought this looked like as good of a place as any."

So he was suspicious of them too. They had gotten a fair distance from Miles, Aaron, and Rachel since they had gone off on their separate paths. It was clear that Bass had no interest in leading them to Miles. She eyed the bows and knives in the men's hands and thought that, for once, they were on the same page about something as she forced a cheesy smile of her own on and told them, "We can go somewhere else if this is your turf."

She figured that it would be the easiest escape, but the leader of the other group didn't seem to agree as he took a few steps forwards. Charlie noted a distinctly gun shaped bulge under the shirt of the man behind him, which he clearly had been attempting to conceal. Perfect.

"Where are you folks coming from?" Their leader asked as he glanced back and forth between them. Charlie was fairly certain that he had some suspicions of his own.

"Chicago," she told him, instinctively giving the first place she could think of that wasn't Willoughby.

"You're a long way from Chicago," the other man pointed out.

"We were hoping to find somewhere safer. Haven't found much of anything though with her sense of direction," Monroe supplied and Charlie resisted the urge to roll her eyes at his blaming their imaginary troubles on her.

"We've got a place, not too far from here. It's pretty safe. Lots of food too. If you're interested," the leader offered.

She most definitely was not interested as she grinned back at him and commented, "That's real nice of you to offer, but we wouldn't want to be a bother. We're getting by alright by ourselves."

"Oh, it's no trouble," he insisted as the men behind him shifted and she became conscious once again of just how outnumbered they were by this armed group. She wasn't sure what exactly they wanted out of them, but she knew that whatever it was couldn't be good. "Come with us, I insist. I just wouldn't be able to sleep tonight knowing that you were out here at risk... What were your names again?"

Charlie gritted her teeth. She hated the way that this guy was trying to act as if he was just casually trying to recollect an old friend's name, rather than trying to force information out of a trapped stranger. The way he was making no effort to provide his own name did not go unnoticed by her.

Bass spoke up again then as he introduced, "I'm Bruce. And this is Selina."

She resisted the urge to shoot him a confused look. She didn't understand why Bruce was the name he had gone for, instead of something that he found cooler or something that wasn't so similar to his real one. He could have at least given her a more common one. She wasn't any position to correct him though, so she just nodded her head in agreement.

* * *

Charlie's senses were on high-alert as they began to walk and every inch of her mind screamed out in protest as the pack utterly surrounded them. The others were still trying to operate under the pretense of friendly generosity and one of them was blathering on about how they shouldn't worry about the weapons, that they were just a precaution and sometimes for hunting, but Charlie felt anything but comfortable with the group.

They'd been walking for about ten minutes with her and Monroe in almost a complete silence when she noticed his hand inching towards his gun out of the corner of her eye. Apparently he was done playing nice, which was just perfect when they were outnumbered and she knew for a fact that at least one of the men trailing behind them had a gun of his own.

She reached out a hand to grab his wrist and stop him, but her own movement seemed to attract the attention of the rest of the group as many of them turned to look over their shoulders at the pair. Charlie made a split-second decision and slid her hand down into his to try to cover that he had been reaching for his gun. She didn't need them getting openly hostile all because he was stupid enough to think he could gun them all down.

The others didn't seem to find anything off about the situation and turned their gazes away again to focus back on navigating the path. Charlie wanted to rip her hand back out of his, but she knew that would be just as suspicious so she continued to stare straight ahead as she unhappily held Monroe's hand in hers. She could feel him glancing down at their intertwined hands and then over to her face out of the corner of his eye, but she kept her gaze focused strictly in front of her.

They walked like that in silence for a few moments longer before Monroe felt her thumb gently stroking over the back of his own. He knew that there was something incredibly off about the motion, but it still took him a few long seconds of confusion, and her continuing to avoid his gaze, before it finally dawned on him that she was slowly spelling something out in morse code on his hand. He had to give her credit, it was a smart move. He might even have to compliment her on it later. Maybe.

By the time he'd figured out what she was doing, he'd only managed to catch the last few letters: O-M-A-N-Y. He hesitated a second to make sure that she was done before sliding his own thumb along the flesh of her hand, using shorter and longer strokes to spell out W-H-A-T_._

A second passed before the response came back_. S_he left a short pause between her words this time as she repeated her message from before. B-A-D O-D-D-S There was a brief pause before she resumed her motions. T-H-E-R-E-S T-O-O M-A-N-Y

He held back a frown as he focused on carefully spelling out I D-O-N-T T-R-U-S-T T-H-E-M.

Her response came without hesitation. T-H-E-Y-R-E A-R-M-E-D

S-W-O-R-D-S A-N-D B-O-W-S

His eyes flickered over to her when she hesitated a second and he saw her ever so slightly shake her head. A-T L-E-A-S-T O-N-E G-U-N

W-H-E-R-E

B-E-H-I-N-D U-S She paused for a moment. C-O-U-L-D B-E M-O-R-E He didn't respond, so finally she felt the need to ask a question of her own. D-O Y-O-U T-H-I-N-K T-H-E-Y K-N-O-W W-H-O Y-O-U A-R-E

N-O-T S-U-R-E

G-O-T A-N-Y P-L-A-N-S

K-I-L-L-I-N-G T-H-E-M

T-H-A-T-S S-U-I-C-I-D-E

N-O-T N-E-C-E-S-S-A-R-I-L-Y

W-E-R-E B-E-T-T-E-R O-F-F A-S A N-A-I-V-E C-O-U-P-L-E

He considered their options for a second before making up his mind on a plan of action, at least for the time at hand. T-E-L-L T-H-E-M Y-O-U H-A-V-E T-O P-E-E

She turned to look at him for a second before she remembered that she should not be reacting to their hidden conversation and quickly composed herself. W-H-A-T

J-U-S-T D-O I-T

If his master plan was her saying that she had to pee, then they were in deep trouble. Even if she could get away from them with that excuse, there would be no chance of her getting far enough to reach the other group or get in the clear before they would notice she was missing and catch up to her. She had no idea where he was going with this, but she wasn't keen on the idea of leaving him unattended to do whatever he saw fit after he had already almost gotten them killed once.

W-H-Y

T-O S-E-E T-H-E-I-R R-E-A-C-T-I-O-N

N-O

Y-E-S

Y-O-U D-O I-T

Y-O-U D-O I-T B-A-M-B-I E-Y-E-S She didn't respond to that and he had to hold back a sigh at how stubborn she was being. She was the innocent looking little girl. How they reacted to her needing to pee would be much more telling than how they responded to his request, but she clearly was not getting that. D-O-N-T Y-O-U W-A-N-T T-O S-E-E H-O-W M-U-C-H T-H-E-Y-L-L G-U-A-R-D Y-O-U

I H-A-T-E Y-O-U

She spoke up then, in what she hoped was an innocent sounding voice instead of a tone that showed how annoyed she was at the man she was still stuck holding hands with, as she told them, "I need to pee."

The rest of the group paused then and turned to look at her, none of them looking the least bit impressed.

"Can't it wait? We're almost there."

She shot them a sheepish smile and tried to will a blush to appear on her cheeks as she insisted, "I really have to go. I think I drank too much."

"She's always like this," Bass commented in an amused tone that only made Charlie more annoyed with his plan. He turned to her and plastered on the fakest of smiles as he questioned, "You've got the bladder of a newborn squirrel. Don't you, baby?"

She gave them an innocent shrug for good measure while silently cursing at Monroe in her mind. As soon as they got away she was going to murder him for this.

The leader sighed and then reluctantly agreed. "Fine, but take Quinn and Erica with you... We wouldn't want anything to happen to you while you're on your own."

Charlie returned the friendly smile, while trying to plan out how she was going to murder Monroe so that it would be most painful for him, before following the two women, both of whom she apparently needed as guards, into the line of trees. She knew that she might be able to win the fight, even with the two of them there, but she still wouldn't be able to escape and she would only gather more attention and raise their captors' suspicions even further, so she only saw one real option.

She reemerged from the trees a minute later and walked back over to Monroe. She grabbed onto his hand again. I H-O-P-E Y-O-U-R-E H-A-P-P-Y I H-A-D T-O P-E-E I-N F-R-O-N-T O-F S-T-R-A-N-G-E-R-S

I C-O-U-L-D T-A-K-E T-H-E-M

N-O

Y-O-U W-A-N-T T-O S-T-A-Y H-E-R-E F-O-R-E-V-E-R

D-O-N-T

He ignored that and her hand tightened so that her nails were digging into his flesh as she squeezed down as hard as she could. Still, he went to move towards the leader of the group and Charlie was certain that he was actively trying to get them both killed. As he went to take another step closer to the man, Charlie did the only thing that she thought that she could do to stop him without completely blowing their cover.

As she yanked on his arm with all her strength, he was caught off-guard and stumbled back half a step. He was even more surprised when she brought her mouth to his. It was less of a kiss than a power-struggle. Charlie bit down hard on his bottom lip to show him just how adamantly she was against his plan of getting them both killed before she pulled back with the hope that he was actually going to listen to her.

She wasn't sure whether it was because of the attention that their little display had attracted, which had made him lose the element of surprise, or if it was simply that she had convinced him of how stupid his plan was, but he went back to walking alongside her after that.

As Bass licked the blood from his lip, he peered back over at her out of the corner of his eye. He wasn't sure why her biting him had that effect on him, but he found himself suddenly enjoying this cover even more than he had been before. Maybe they were still trapped, but he found himself still able to be momentarily distracted by the spitfire.

* * *

They were stripped of their weapons, they were told as yet another precaution, and found themselves even more outnumbered once they got back to the supposedly safe building. It appeared to be an abandoned factory that someone had tried, and failed, to make look like a home. The no weapons rule seemed to apply solely to them and they soon realized that even trapped by armed guards, although they would never admit to being guards if asked they were both sure, no one was planning on leaving them unattended.

The pair had been sitting in complete silence, eating the food that they had been supplied with, for a while with their hands still intertwined. Neither had been spelling out much of anything, but they left it that way so that, should they have something they needed to say, they would be able to without losing their subtlety by constantly reaching to grab the other's hand. It was Bass who finally took advantage of the ease of access. G-O-O-D T-H-I-N-G W-E D-I-D-N-T F-I-G-H-T T-H-E-M

Great. Him having the ability to make snarky comments about this being her fault was just what she needed. She debated pulling her hand away, but changed her mind at the last second. T-H-E-Y-R-E P-L-A-N-N-I-N-G S-O-M-E-T-H-I-N-G

T-R-Y-I-N-G T-O M-A-K-E U-S C-O-M-F-Y A-N-D N-O-T L-E-T-T-I-N-G U-S L-E-A-V-E He paused for a moment. I-D S-A-Y I-T-S S-O-M-E-T-H-I-N-G B-A-D

Y-O-U W-O-U-L-D K-N-O-W

He chose to ignore that and for a long time sat there without looking at her or saying anything, out loud or through morse code.

Charlie was the one who ended up finally breaking the silence. M-A-Y-B-E W-E C-A-N E-S-C-A-P-E A-T N-I-G-H-T

N-O-T L-I-K-E-L-Y

T-H-E-N W-A-I-T I-T O-U-T A-N-D S-E-E W-H-A-T T-H-E-Y W-A-N-T

W-E D-O-N-T R-E-A-L-L-Y H-A-V-E O-T-H-E-R O-P-T-I-O-N-S A-N-Y-M-O-R-E

* * *

They were stuck there for two and a half more days of constantly being watched and playing dumb. They left their hands in each other's most of the time so that they could try to discuss a plan until they finally figured out what was going on. The group had recognized Monroe and decided to sell him. They had a buyer now and were selling Charlie alongside him, since Monroe's "piece of ass" was apparently worth a decent amount herself. When she was told that she had to resist the urge to punch the smirking man who had said it.

All pretenses of kindness were over now as Charlie and Monroe were left tied up in a wagon. They had stopped to get water and only one of the three men escorting them was left in the wagon to guard both of them with his gun. Having their wrists bound together in front of them proved to hinder their silent communication, along with their ability to fight. Still, Monroe turned his head to look over at Charlie and quirked an eyebrow at her to silently ask '_now?'_.

She gave him a slight nod and then she moved to lunge off the wagon, in the opposite direction of him, to create a diversion as he rushed at their lone guard. By the time that Charlie rose to her feet again, he had snapped their guard's neck and was awkwardly holding the gun in his tied hands.

He still managed to get rid of the guard at the water with it, despite the ropes. The sound from that brought the other one, who had been taking a bathroom break in the nearby trees, running and he had already dropped to the ground before he was able to get his hand to his weapon.

"Still think I couldn't have taken out the whole group?" Bass questioned with a proud smirk.

"Yes," she responded bluntly before going over to the man by the water's body to grab his knife off of him.

She cut Monroe's ropes off of his wrists and then he did the same for her before asking, "Now how about you use those tracking skills of yours to get us back without running into those idiots again?"

"I would, but I'd probably just get us lost with my sense of direction," she retorted, still annoyed from his condescending comments he'd made when they'd been constructing their covers.

He laughed at that, which only irritated her even further.

* * *

"Where the hell have you two been?" Rachel demanded once the pair had gotten back.

"Tropical vacation," Bass responded sarcastically.

"He got us taken prisoner," Charlie corrected.

"You're the one whose whole plan was just follow them without a fight," he countered.

"You're the one whose whole plan was to get us both killed," she retorted.

* * *

They'd been heading back to Willoughby on foot for a while before a nasty little habit that they'd developed over the past few days was very abruptly pointed out to them. As they'd been walking next to each other, the pair had slipped their hands into each other's absent-mindedly, without it even really registering. At least it hadn't registered to them until Miles had caught sight of it and gestured towards them as he asked, "What the hell is this?"

Charlie and Bass both looked down at their intertwined hands and simultaneously tore their hand away from the other's before taking another step apart.

Charlie just stared at her uncle and insisted, "No."

Meanwhile, Bass let out a distorted chuckle as he asked, "You're kidding, right?"

Maybe they had grown to kind of enjoy the hand-holding, but neither was about to admit it. Instead, the many sets of eyes on Charlie caused her to blurt out the explanation, "We had to use the hand-holding thing to cover up the fact that I had to pull his hand off of his gun when he was trying to get us both shot. And then we ended up using it to talk without them being able to tell what we were doing."

"How do you talk through holding hands?" Aaron interrupted.

"Morse code," Bass responded with a casual shrug, as if it had been his idea all along.

"Okay, that's pretty cool," Aaron, who had been the one who had taught Charlie morse code in the first place, pointed out as a wide grin formed on his lips. That disappeared when he noticed the annoyed look that Miles and Rachel were giving him. "Not the holding hands with Monroe thing. But, I mean, morse code hand-holding is kind of badass."

Charlie smirked, quite proud of herself. That did nothing to help how much her uncle and mother looked unimpressed.

"And what does any of this have to do with you two holding hands now?" Miles questioned.

"We were stuck there for three days," Charlie pointed out. "And we got stuck holding hands pretty much the whole time so that we would be able to talk with other people around. That was just force of habit, I guess."

Oh, how she hoped that it was only a force of habit that could quickly be fixed.

"Well, I'm pretty sure that it's safe to keep your hands to yourself here," Miles retorted.

* * *

The pair walked even further away from each other after that, for the rest of the day. Things appeared to have returned to normal, until a couple of days later when Miles was getting bossed around by Rachel for a change.

Charlie and Bass were walking alongside each other once again and, without thinking, his hand reached over to grab hers. _T_-H-E-R-E-S T-H-E R-E-A-L G-E-N-E-R-A-L M-A-T-H-E-S-O-N

Before she had the chance to restrain herself or fully realize what she was doing, Charlie let out a half-laugh at that.

Miles turned around then and stared incredulously at the pair and their linked hands. He suddenly found himself especially convinced that the hand-holding was not simply a cover, but an unfortunate beginning of something more. He glared over at them and got a small amount of satisfaction as Charlie dropped his hand and made an excuse to walk off.

"I have to pee."

A smirk pulled at Bass's lips as he taunted, "Are you sure you don't need someone to go with you and make sure that it's safe, squirrel bladder?"

"Go to hell, Bruce. You're never coming up with the plan again."

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review! The aliases that Bass gave were definitely references to Batman and Catwoman because Bass is a dork.**


End file.
